The Boundaries Within? Immigration Enforcement and Asian and Latino Public Opinion

Symbolic boundaries are central to much of Paul DiMaggio’s work on culture and inequality. Who is seen as part of one’s community and who is seen as outside of it has important implications for how individuals develop opinions about who belongs in the nation. Understanding these patterns is perhaps more critical than ever, as communities endure a second Trump administration bent on demonizing immigrants, pursuing mass deportation, and severely curtailing immigrant rights. This article examines these issues by exploring Latino and Asian American attitudes toward current immigration enforcement strategies. Drawing on a survey of registered voters in California, we ask: who supports strategies that target and deport immigrants, and what factors predict variation in these attitudes? We find that both groups show similarly low levels of enforcement support overall, and that across both groups, the belief that enforcement unfairly targets Latinos is associated with lower support, while conservative ideology is associated with higher support. Within groups, however, the sources of opinion variation differ systematically. Among Latino respondents, we find a strong and consistent gender gap across multiple political dimensions, whereas among Asian Americans, attitudes are structured by education level and ethnic origin. Overall, these patterns reveal that the boundaries of exclusion run not only between communities but also through them, and any real reckoning with exclusion must begin by centering the divisions within.